Hamilton, Shane (Author)
Agricultural History
Volume: 96
Issue: 1-2
Pages: 253-258
Publication date: 2022
Language: English
In the mid-1990s, Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro insisted that the firm he headed, primarily known since its founding in the early twentieth century as a commodity chemical manufacturer, had become a forerunner of a new and “more ethereal strategy—sustainability.”1 Biotechnology was core to this strategic transformation, explained Shapiro, for only via “the substitution of information for stuff,” that is, by shifting from agrochemicals to information technology, could multinational corporations like Monsanto confront the environmental degradation caused by unsustainable industrial agriculture.2Three decades later, Monsanto was acquired by the German chemical firm Bayer, largely for its expertise in biotechnology and digital agriculture. Yet for all the continued promises to substitute “information for stuff,” Monsanto remains one of the world's largest producers of agrochemicals. Glyphosate, developed by Monsanto and marketed as Roundup since the early 1970s, continues to be the most widely used herbicide in modern agriculture. Despite long being touted as environmentally friendly owing to its compatibility with conservation tillage and its relatively short persistence in soil after application, the material realities of glyphosate's environmental impacts have become increasingly visible in recent years. The emergence of glyphosate-resistant “superweeds,” the successful waging of lawsuits targeting Roundup as a harm to human health, and environmentalist critiques of genetically modified Roundup Ready seeds highlight the political and ethical issues that have only become more urgent in the time since Shapiro's departure from Monsanto in 2001.3
...MoreArticle Frank Uekötter (2022) Introduction: Roundtable - Should Agricultural Historians Care about the New Materialism. Agricultural History (pp. 223-224).
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